which it is unnecessary to repeat, It may be enough to state that he
found the country flooded, and that on the way it was no unusual thing
for him to be wet all day, and to walk through swamps, and water three
or four feet deep. Trees, thorns, and reeds offered tremendous
resistance, and he and his people must have presented a pitiable sight
when forcing their way through reeds with cutting edges. "With our own
hands all raw and bloody, and knees through our trousers, we at length
emerged." It was a happy thought to tear his pocket-handkerchief into
two parts and tie them over his knees. "I remember," he says in his
Journal, referring to last year's journey, "the toil which our friend
Oswell endured on our account. He never spared himself." It is not to be
supposed that his guides were happy in such a march; it required his
tact stretched to its very utmost to prevent them from turning back. "At
the Malopo," he writes to his wife, "there were other dangers besides.
When walking before the wagon in the morning twilight, I observed a
lioness about fifty yards from me, in the squatting way they walk when
going to spring. She was followed by a very large lion, but seeing the
wagon, she turned back." Though he escaped fever at first, he had
repeated attacks afterward, and had to be constantly using remedies
against it. The unhealthiness of the region to Europeans forced itself
painfully on his attention, and made him wonder in what way God would
bring the light of the gospel to the poor inhabitants. As a physician
his mind was much occupied with the nature of the disease, and the way
to cure it. If only he could discover a remedy for that scourge of
Africa, what an invaluable boon would he confer on its
much-afflicted people!

"I would like," he says in his Journal, "to devote a portion
of my life to the discovery of a remedy for that terrible
disease, the African fever[37]. I would go into the parts
where it prevails most, and try to discover if the natives
have a remedy for it. I must make many inquiries of the river
people in this quarter. What an unspeakable mercy it is to be
permitted to engage in this most holy and honorable work!
What an infinity of lots in the world are poor, miserable,
and degraded compared with mine! I might have been a common
soldier, a day-laborer, a factory operative, a mechanic,
instead of a missionary. If my faculties had been left to run